•The first time I've heard 9/11 invoked by anyone was last night in Tiger Stadium, where three or four groups of Army National Guardists who've recently returned from the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters were introduced at half time. So the fact that the bloody shirt of the 9/11 attacks has been off the table in this campaign is--what? A tribute to John McCain's basic decency and intelligence? The result of negative focus group polling done by the GOP?
I find it curious, but welcome, not to have our entire electoral process distorted by the 9/11 lens. We may be closer to gaining some perspective on these admittedly horrific attacks than I thought.

•Another group in Baton Rouge that are interesting to watch are the Vietnamese-Americans who have been an increasing presence since the 1990s. My instinct is that they're folks who are by nature very conservative, even authoritarian, very family oriented, largely small-business owners or aspiring to same. The wild card is that only half of them are Catholic, and thus presumably part of our Republican governor's base--the other half are Buddhist. The Buddhist temple near my house is large and apparently thriving. How do Buddhists view the marginalization of all religions save Christian fundamentalism that has become the Republican Party's stock in trade? I'll be interested to see how these new Louisianans vote.